Heaven: Part 0

This is the first half of the story - see Part 1 for the last section.

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It was a cool, breezy autumn day, and Dwayne Burkman was dying on the fiery leaves. Always having been the headstrong one, Dwayne had shrugged away three days of intense, steadily worsening chest pain with little more than a couple complaints and a handful of painkillers. Little did he know that he was trying to ignore a heart attack. Now he was to die at 34, and the family he once supported would be toppled.

His son was beside him, trying to talk his father into living, calling for his mother. They had been raking leaves together. Mrs. Burkman could not hear, and the poor boy was afraid to leave his father alone.

"Tim," Dwayne rasped, "Hold my hand." The boy did so, his moist, tear-soaked hand closing around his father’s. Dwayne noticed that his son was crying. He lifted his free hand up to the boy’s face, trembling, and tried to still his tears with his finger. He may as well have tried to stop a waterfall with a paper cup. Tim tried to think of something to say, but no sound escaped his throat. He was afraid.

Dwayne felt his energies failing. He knew he didn’t have long. "Tim... son... know that I love you, and I love your mommy, more than anything in the world... We’ll all be together again, someday." His breath caught, and he tried to smile. "I’ll see you later," he whispered, and he was dead, his heavy arm falling out of Tim’s grip with a thump. The boy tried to wake his father, but couldn’t. He ran inside.

Dwayne wasn’t aware at the time, but the last words he uttered were lies.

Outside of the spectrum, Dwayne woke from death. However, he was no longer Dwayne - Here, He had no name, a thousand of them. The Man stretcHed, and observed His surroundings as one observes tHeir home after returning from a vacation.

He was in a pitch black basement, square in shape, tHe sort that one would find in an abandoned old house. THe floor and bottom half of tHe walls were of cement and tHe top half of tHe walls were once wood, now rotten and warped. On one wall tHere was a window, up high and beyond reach, but tHe grime and dust that were caked into tHe glass shut out any light that could shine through. On tHe ceiling, tHere was a single light bulb, but if it had ever functioned at all it was now long burnt out, and rusted deep into its socket. In two corners tHere were metal tables, each one standing under two computers, which were perpetually off - tHe exception to which was His. Its monitor cast a shadow of colour on tHe black walls.

One of tHe walls was blanketed almost entirely in rows of untidy vertical scratcHes. It was tHis wall that He went to first, and using a fingernail, He scraped anotHer gash into tHe rotting wood, one of several thousand. His memory was limited, and so He could not remember more than a few marks on tHe tally. THis life had been relatively unexciting. Dwayne had been anotHer family man. THey were tHe most boring ones - tHeir conflicts were shallow, dull. Starving children were much more exciting. His last one like that, Zhurana, had drowned trying to escape a mudslide. Those were tHe sorts of deaths worth living for.

His eyes drifted up to tHe top right mark on tHe wall. It must have been tHe first - or at least, that’s tHe way He figured it, He couldn’t remember and chances were pretty good that it was. He wisHed that He had remembered what had happened before that. In tHe game, people marked tHeir thoughts on paper, but tHere was no language in tHis chamber. Even if He had a pen and paper, He hadn’t tHe slightest clue what He would write. It anguisHed Him.

He restlessly moved from tHe wall of marks to tHe wall of doors. THe two doors were tHe same design, but sight is only one sense. THe left door was dead centre on tHe wall, knob to tHe right, some of a shiny finish still clinging but most of it worn off to reveal tHe dull, wise metal beneath. THe latcHes indicated that it opened to tHe inside, but He had never opened it. He was afraid of what He might find.

THe rightmost door He couldn’t look at, but its memory was seared on His mind. It was symmetrical to tHe otHer door - knob left, latcHes outside. At a time, many milliseconds ago, His curiousity had manifested in tHe spontaneous way it often does, free of sense or caution. He had wanted to close His hand on tHe knob, feel it to ensure its reality, and turn it. After that, He had no idea what He would do. But tHe opportunity never came. THe moment His fingers grasped tHe handle, venomous electricity coursed up His arm, through His bones. A snake of ice slitHered through His ribcage and coiled up His spine, tHen squeezed, screecHed, shattered, exploded. He woke up several decades after with a new hard-coded fear of tHe door and its partner.

His eyes bowled under tHe corner and into tHe last few walls of tHe chamber. Here tHere were more doors, but tHey showed much less menace than tHe otHer two. Just black rectangles, with no knobs, set on glass that gave no promise of giving light. He didn’t know wHetHer He hated tHem or tHe doors more. At least tHe doors had tHe courtesy to say no. THe rectangles gave half-assed maybes.

He sat down and contemplated tHe glass bulb for a few picoseconds before stirring again. With His routine tour of His chamber complete, He sat back down at His computer screen, and in no time at all, tHe seat was empty, and tHe chamber still as tHe computer screen powered down and tHe chamber turned black.

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More to come when I don't have an enormous headache.